Each year the Lisbon Awards Group, which organises the Lisbon International Advertising Festival, selects one professional to reward for their years of positive impact on the advertising industry. FCB International chief executive, Luís Silva Dias, has become this year’s recipient of the Lisbon International Advertising Festival’s Career Award.

“After three years in the panel of executive judges (which, among us, earned him the title of Honorary Executive Judge) we considered it was time to reward and honour the career of Luís Silva Dias, who contributed so much to the advertising market but also to raising the reputation of Portugal, which nowadays competes in the major international markets. In such a competitive market, where Portugal is still ‘small’, Luís’s work, perseverance and resilience are some of the reasons why we decided to honour him.”

Silva Dias joined FCB in 2000 and was named creative director of FCB Portugal from 2002. He moved up to serve as the agency’s president and chief executive from 2005 and was appointed chief creative officer of FCB International in 2014 before being named chief executive of FCB International in August 2018. His significant creative contributions to the industry have also seen him awarded by D&AD, The One Show, CLIO, Cresta, Art Directors Club, LIA and at Cannes.

Silva Dias stated, “This was a very nice, very touching and a very exciting surprise – and hopefully, considering the nature of these awards, a very premature one. It leaves me with very little more to say than to try and express a huge sense of gratitude. My deepest ‘thank you’ to the LIAF, to the jury and above all, to those which, at some point, allowed me to be part of their own careers, allowing me to constantly learn from some of the best, most talented creative minds in our necessarily collaborative and collegial industry.”

The Lisbon International Advertising Festival, founded 2016, awards the best advertising work ​​in the world, and also the best work in each region of the globe: Africa, North America, Eastern and Western Europe, South/Central/Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, Central and East Asia, MENA region, and Oceania.